Book of Ice
by Asymia
Summary: "Hmm. Well, perhaps he takes after his mother?" Idina asked with a shaky laugh. The Chief of Police's eyes widened momentarily, and she was silent for a good deal of time. Finally, the older woman spoke, her voice incredibly defeated in comparison to how it was moments before. "Perhaps so." Rated T for Language and darker themes.
1. Chapter One: Ice

** I watched the entire LoK series last night, and I must say, I loved it better than the original, if possible. Except Korra totally needs to dump Mako for his brother next season. First episode is most preferable.**

** Disclaimer: I wish I owned Avatar… **

* * *

"Ms. Beifong," started the waterbending nurse as she slipped into the hospital room, before being abruptly cut off by the now slightly feeble older woman.

"_Chief _Beifong," she snapped at the dark haired woman who couldn't be older than twenty-three. Why were people so young and inexperienced even allowed in such a practice?

"Right, my apologies." The girl smiled politely and wrote something down on her pink and glittery clipboard, as if now they were monitoring her disposition as well. Lin scoffed, internally muttering to herself that, were she in charge, she would see to it that the airheaded employees would have better jobs to occupy their time. Like figuring out how to make the food not taste like shit.

The waterbender ignored Lin's nasty behaviour, however, and capped her pen before continuing. The woman put on a warm, fake smile and made her introduction, "My name is Idina-"

"Brilliant. Good for you."

"Chief Beifong, _please._" The girl said, and for the first time, Lin turned her attention to the girl's pleading eyes.

"You're not my nurse, are you, kid?" Lin asked quietly after a small pause.

"No. Well, I am a nurse here, but I'm not yours. I just… well, I happened to read your file a few minutes ago." The girl said. She then continued, after Lin raised an eyebrow. "You tried to abort this child four times."

"Yes."

"But it didn't work."

"Well, obviously."

The nurse let out a small breath, then shakily flipped through her clipboard. The Chief of Police's gaze was piercing, and quite frankly, Idina was beginning to regret coming here at all. "Um, it says here that his labor process lasted roughly thirty-six hours."

"Yeah, it's a resilient little fucker, that one. Already refusing to go down without a fight." Beifong let out another scoff and began to count the tiles on the ceiling.

_It_, Idina thought to herself. She tried a different approach, "Hmm. Well, perhaps he takes after his mother?" Idina asked with a shaky laugh.

The Chief of Police's eyes widened momentarily, and she was silent for a good deal of time. Finally, the older woman spoke, her voice incredibly defeated in comparison to how it was moments before. "Perhaps so."

Idina cleared her throat, hoping that this was somehow a form of breakthrough. "But now you've called to have the baby euthanized."

Any sort of defense that Idina might have broken down was immediately slammed back up tenfold. Lin spun her head back to the girl and responded with bared teeth, "I've gone to Master Tenzin about this, for your information, and he agrees that it is the right thing to do, so why don't you shut your d-"

"When I was fifteen, I was raped and consequentially impregnated."

Even though the girl's mutter was barely audible, she now had Lin's full attention. So Idina took a deep breath and continued, "When given the choice, I asked for special herbs that would kill the fetus. It's the only decision I've ever regretted in my life."

She looked to Lin, who was currently staring out the window. Idina thought she could spot a single tear dripping down the metalbender's face. "Have you seen the baby yet?" Idina asked quietly.

"No."

"Do you want to?"

This pause was much greater than the earlier one.

And then finally;

"Yes."

* * *

Idina was back within five minutes holding the swaddled newborn. "He's kind of sleeping right now," Idina whispered quietly, "But here you go, Mommy."

Lin pondered over how she felt about being called Mommy while the baby was passed to her. As she fumbled for the proper way to hold him, she stared down upon its face. Dark skin, russet brown hair, wide nose. Curious as to how exactly babies felt, she moved to stroke his cheek.

At that moment, the baby's tiny hand reached up and grasped her index finger so tightly and so quickly that Lin let out a small gasp. Then its eyes fluttered open.

Eyes of piercing blue that matched the exact shape and shade of the very eyes behind the mask that took everything from her that night, before an entire crowd.

"Get this thing the fuck away from me," Lin growled, her entire body had tensed.

"Chief Beifong…" Idina started."

"_Now! That's an order!"_

Idina rushed over and removed the baby from Chief Beifong's grasp before the earthbender could do anything dangerous. Idina fumbled to remove his clasp on Beifong's finger while she sputtered, "I-I'm sorry, what… what would you like us to do with him?"

"Kill it," Beifong spat, "Or give it away. I don't care. Just make sure it's far enough away that I never have to see it again. And make sure they've got a damn good task force, wherever that thing is headed."

"Right away, ma'am!" Idina called hurriedly as she rushed to get the baby out of the room before it began to cry due to its mother's distress. But the baby simply blinked, no emotion crossing its face at all. The other nurses said that this little boy was the best thing they've ever had in the nursery, it hadn't cried for the entire time it spent with them.

Idina made her way back to the nursery and settled him down in his crib. "I tried, little guy. I really did." She told the baby with a small smile, feeling her own tears begin to well up. "But at least now you're here to stay."

* * *

Eight years later, Lin Beifong strode as fiercely as ever down the halls of her precinct. Her assistant scrambled to keep up with her. "Good morning, Chief! We've got an interesting one here!"

"Debrief me," she ordered in an even tone as they approached the interrogation room.

"Well," he said, pushing up his glasses and reviewing the file, "Last night at about 2:00am, Idina Bokk (waterbender, age thirty-one) was reported missing and, well, dead we assume. Her entire house was swallowed up by a fissure. The earth then closed up around the building so neatly that we can't even tell where the building once was and, well, forgive me for saying this, but not even you could've pulled that off, Chief."

"Natural? What the hell kind of an earthquake is that?" She asked as they neared the end of the narrow hall.

Her assistant fumbled through some more papers as he spoke, "I'm not sure, but the only known witness of the account was her eight year old adoptive kid, who says he was playing outside at the time."

Beifong stopped outside the door and glared at her assistant, "An eight year old boy playing outside at two in the morning? Which one of these idiots around here let that one slide?" Beifong angrily asked, making sure she was loud enough for the whole hallway to hear her. Seismic sense told her that she'd be checking up on the nervous heartbeat in Room 57 very shortly.

Beifong hissed at her poor assistant, and then wheeled around to throw the door open on the interrogation room.

The eyes that met hers were a piercing ice blue. He smiled innocently as her own eyes widened with shock.

"Good morning, Chief Beifong."

* * *

**This was supposed to be a prologue of something entirely different, but ended up becoming a ficlet itself. Meaning now I need a new prologue… Idina Bokk is named after Idina Menzel, largely due to her role in the TV show Glee. Bokk was acquired from the name Boq, a character in Wicked (also Idina related.) **

** Lin Beifong is one of my two favorite characters in LoK, the other one being Bolin, and I wanted to write something about one of them. But since my comfort zone in writing is primarily dark material and I don't think Bolin could take such dark material… this was born. **

**For right now I shall say that this story is complete, because honestly I have nowhere I particularly want to go from here. My primary issue with writing has always been my style. Because while I have to admit I am kind of fond of it, it presents two problems. The first being that I can only really present an idea to the reader, not so much a plot; and the second issue being that there aren't many genres I can do this with, besides horror and angst and fluff. Scratch that, I cannot physically write fluff. So with that being said, even if I listed this as In-progress, it probably would not be added onto unless I was suffering from an extreme bout of insomnia and imagination. Like now.**

**But anyway, please review your thoughts on my ficlet and/or my writing issues, if you feel so inclined! Any sort of constructive criticism or ideas are greatly appreciated!**


	2. Chapter Two: Wind

_Nine Years Later_

The night was dark, but the sea was pitched black. The waves came crashing down ferociously upon each other as they scrambled to make themselves heard. High winds and rain were beginning to buffet the hull of the ex-naval frigate, drawing the few people on deck downstairs.

To Tara, the weather was absolutely delicious. Taking a running leap, she flung herself off the side of the ship, spreading her arms wide and letting the wind catch upon the triangular pieces of sails she had strapped to the knotted rope bracelets on her wrists and to her belt of even thicker knots. The unstrapped vertices of the sails in the region of her under arms were strapped to each other around her upper body with even more thick rope, it all in sailor's knots that she had perfected over the years. She had gotten the idea for this contraption from the ring-tailed winged lemurs on her uncle's island, since she couldn't quite figure out how to operate the air ball.

For the most part, she let the perfect winds take her where they wanted her to go, at first. Tara only added a little push here and there as to not plummet or crash into the sides of her ship. Then over a small amount of time, she dominated much more control, procuring her own winds in order to perform practiced tricks, loop-di-loops, nose dives and everything else that amped up her adrenalin. She pushed the differently heated airs underneath her, causing her body to be launched so high into the air that she could barely even see the ship. She was completely fine with that, of course.

Tara considered, as she had so many times before, simply flying off somewhere new and leaving the frigate completely behind altogether. She could do it, after all. Her father probably wouldn't have even remembered she was onboard with him. From that point on she would be free to do as she pleased, without anything or anyone to anchor her with rules or limitations.

However, these ideas were shattered by a flash of nearby lightning, telling her to make her way back out of the danger zone and onto the deck of the ship.

Her landing was rather heavy and sloppy, something she reminded herself that she had to work on if she was going to impress her uncle enough into believing that she didn't need his training when they docked in Republic City next week. As she began to undo the first knot from her left bracelet, she saw a little spark of light from the corner of her eye. She turned to find a boy maybe a year or two older than her, tall and dark, leaning against a mast and absentmindedly letting flames dance across his fingertips. He didn't look up to acknowledge her arrival, but when he began to speak, she knew it was to her.

"I heard that this would be where I might find myself an airbending teacher. While I think we both can agree that you're quite far from skill mastery, perhaps you'll find more incentive to teach than those idiots down on Airbending Island."

Tara had no idea what to say to this, (mainly she was just pissed that this random firebender kid somehow got on this ship only to tell her that she sucked,) so she chose instead to see what else she could find from this boy as she cautiously retightened the knots on her wrist, "Will I? And why is that?"

"Because otherwise, I'll be burning down this entire ship and everyone on it. Because I need a teacher for this ridiculous element, or else I can't learn waterbending either. Because, Katarra Feng," he looked up at her when he said this last part, and Tara's body chilled at the sight of his ice blue eyes, "I am the Avatar."

Tara shook her head indignantly took a step toward him, "Liar. Avatar Korra is still alive."

"For the most part, yes," he smirked as he examined the ship's exterior. "But her full bending aptitudes were taken by my father about the same point which I was conceived. Therefore," he said, smirk widening, "I'm in control."

While he was speaking, Tara had found a nearby barrel of water that wasn't properly strapped down. With a strong thrust of her right arm, she sent the barrel whizzing towards his abdomen, knocking him off the starboard side of the frigate.

She had been aiming for his head in order to knock the guy out, but that worked too.

Tara once again took flight off of the port side of the ship, but this time she actually did try to get away. She wasn't worried about lightning anymore. She had a feeling that the previous incident was caused by her firebending friend anyway. She knew the general direction of Republic City and headed straight for it.

After getting a few miles out, Tara mustered up the courage to look back at her father's ship.

She knew she would find it in flames, but it still hurt to see. She didn't look back anymore after that.


	3. Chapter Three: Water

**I was in a rush, so I didn't spell check this chapter. If you see any mistakes or something that just flat out doesn't make sense, please please please please PLEASE tell me in a private message. Thanks!**

Tiana was never quite able to place how she felt about her dreams. They came at really inconvenient times, and she never really knew what to do with them. It always circumvented around the same lady, an elderly woman who Tiana always felt like she knew from somewhere else. But whenever she woke up, she would always forget just enough about the woman's features as to never be able to find at least a picture of her in real life.

Tonight's dream started exactly how they all did. Tiana awoke by the side of a river and found the elderly woman practicing in the flowing water. Tiana would always go join her, and they would always go through the same cycles. A bit of small talk from the woman, a bit of waterbending training, and then some cryptic message for the future that Tiana never felt quite smart enough to figure out until it already happened. These dreams had been happening her whole life, and after fifteen years, she was finally fed up with it.

Other children around Republic City thought Tiana was a freak. Due to her nightly training sessions, Tiana was a scarily good healer. When Tiana was younger she tried warning people about her messages of the future, which caused everyone to think she was insane. And when the things actually started happening like she had said they would, people didn't look at her with admiration, they looked at her with disgust. At some point, she simply began hiding her gift. Now she wanted to know why the woman was around at all.

Tiana splashed through the swallow riverbed right over to the woman, whom she found lightly smiling at Tiana's behavior. "Well, go on and ask," the woman said lightly, looking up at Tiana with her deep blue eyes.

"Who are you? How come you know everything about me, but I don't even know your name?" Tiana questioned.

The woman's smile broadened, and she went around the question, "How is the healing going, Tiana?"

"Good, everybody forgot that I'm a loser already."

The woman began to make gentle whirlpools in the water, "As waterbenders, we're built for frequent change and adaption, taking the shape of our environment just as water takes the shape of its container. I just hope that with all this change, you haven't lost your identity along the way."

"And whose fault would that be?" Tiana snapped back. She almost apologized, because she had never been so rude to another person in her life. The woman, however, seemed to just chuckle.

"You have great talent, Tiana. You'll be achieving mastery soon, and you deserve to be praised for it. Once you become a master, you won't be needing my help anymore, I'm afraid." The woman finally turned her full attention to Tiana. "So I suppose now would be a good time to tell you about myself."

The woman walked over to the side of the crystal clear river to take a seat, and Tiana followed suit. Then, the woman continued to speak. "My name is Katara. Unfortunately, I am not among the living anymore. I was and still am married to Avatar Aang, I helped end the war and have been a known waterbending master for quite some time. However, my job isn't quite over yet."

Tiana skipped rocks across the water while she processed this information. "Are you related to me?" she finally asked

Katara shook her head, "No, but I'd love to be."

"So, then, why… why me?" Tiana asked, "Why am I the one you chose to make dream master?"

Katara chuckled once more, "Dream master… You're destined for great things, Tiana. Things that will be happening sooner rather than later. You're going to be a part of something big, something that needs a strong healer like you to glue it all together. When my blood comes to you, I need you to help her."

Tiana stood up out of frustration, "What things?! What girl?! How come you never tell me anything directly?!"

But Tiana never got her answer to that question. She woke up to the sounds of her window being smashed and her ten year old brother screaming.

Tiana's eyes flew open and she noticed another person in the room, and the sounds of a frantic female voice trying to calm him down.

"Kid, hush! Shh! Okay, um, what does your family bend?"

Tiana wished for a moment that her parents hadn't gone on vacation and left her in charge, but she pushed those thoughts aside and concentrated on the vase of flowers across the room. Tiana was on the top bunk, so she couldn't quite see where her brother or the assailant was, but she had a pretty good idea. Tiana drew quietly drew all of the water out of the vase, solidified it into ice daggers, and waited for more confirmation as to where the intruder was located. She tried to listen for the sound of the voice over her little brother's screaming.

"Water? You guys bend water? This whole room is blue, so I'm right, aren't I, buddy? Guess what? My aunt _and_ my grandma are-slash-were waterbending masters! And I live on a boat! Wait…. Oh. Anyway, what's your name? My name is Katara, because I was named after my grandmother! Please stop crying!"

Tiana gasped and dropped her hold on the ice daggers. She kicked off her sheets and jumped over the side of the bunk, landing on the girl below. Pinning the girl down, Tiana once again took control of the daggers, poising them all around the girl's neck as a threat.

"Whoa, chill," the girl said, but Tiana was far from doing that.

"Why are you here, who sent you, and what do you want from us?" Tiana demanded shakily. This was really the first time she had ever even attempted to take control of a situation in real life.

The girl, Katara, laughed and reached up to nudge one of the closest daggers away. "Well, see, here's the thing; I didn't actually try to get here. I was kinda… trying to land in that parking lot next to your apartment, but I didn't expect city air temperatures to be the way they are and… yeah. Now I'm in your room…"

Tiana processed this and then realized that this girl must be an airbender. Which means she must've been related to Avatar Aang, and thus…

"Tell me more about your name." Tiana demanded, and Katara lightly pushed Tiana off of her body.

"Well," the airbender said, "My dad wanted his children to all have names like his. And since I was a girl and he couldn't really do that, he just kinda named me after his mom, the waterbender. And then I had everyone call me Tara instead, because Katara is too…. silly. Speaking of waterbenders, are you a healer?" The girl asked, "Because, I kinda got hit by lightning earlier." To prove this, the girl lifted up her pant-leg to show Tiana a heavily bleeding wound.

Tiana took the girl into the living room and told her brother to go back to sleep. While healing Tara, Tiana thought about all the things that Katara had told her in her dream. This girl was related to the woman who had been her trainer all her life, that couldn't have been a coincidence. Tiana wanted answers. "Where did you say you were going?" she asked the aribender.

"Hmm? Oh, Republic City. I kinda… miscalculated distance. I was landing in order to ask for directions, but, you know…"

"I healed what I could, but you need to rest this for a while." Tiana told the girl. It was a lie, Tiana could have completely fixed it if she wanted to. But she wanted answers about herself. So she only healed as much as a city medic would have been able to do for Tara, in order to keep the girl around. "My parents won't be home for a few months, so why don't you stay here? Then after you're better, I can take you to Republic City." Tiana offered.

Tara seemed to hesitate, but then finally smiled. "I'd love that, thanks."


End file.
